The Devil's Details
by Marquis Carabas
Summary: When a freak storm leaves three unfortunate stallions stranded at the other side of the world from Equestria, nothing short of the magic of friendship will help them survive the journey home. Easier said than done when the problems set against them are outweighed by the divisions between them. On hiatus until September-ish.
1. Falling Pebbles

**I don't own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This piece of fiction will therefore occupy a very legally murky area, but at least it'll do so in company.**

**This story will centre around original characters, which may or may not be your preference. Praemonitus praemunitus and all that jazz.**

**As always, any constructive criticism will be gratefully accepted.**

* * *

Above Canterlot, the summer sun shone like a freshly-minted bit. It dominated a clear sky, painting the white stone of the city gold and casting the deep-set streets into shadow.

On days like this, from a suitable vantage point on one of the rising towers (as opposed to one of the falling towers, remnants of an architectural fad that nopony nowadays cared to talk about), one could see the land all around for miles. Facing the city gates, the Greycairn Mountains started and ran endlessly eastwards. To the north and west, rolling hills and farmlands stretched all the way to Ponyville and the border of the Everfree Forest. Looking south, the highways to Fillydelphia and Manehatten cut silver trails through green fields and forests, gradually shading to an arid orange at the horizon.

Below the towers, Canterlot turned like an ants nest. The city streets and palace walkways bustled with ponies about their business; with artisans and shopkeepers enjoying their lunchbreaks, families enjoying the weather in the parks, guards on patrol and nobles killing time and deliveryponies hauling wagons and carts up from the trainyard. Past the towers, in the sky above and around the city, airships and sky chariots and pegasi teams departed and arrived and, barring direction, leisurely cruised.

Compared to everything else, the towers were relatively tranquil, comfortably detached from the hubbub on all sides. In the Lance, the tallest tower of the royal palace, Princess Celestia was throwing her intellect and patience into another cage match with Equestria's affairs of state. In the towers of the airdocks, a team of earth pony engineers and pilots were quietly going over the prep for the opening launch of the _Nocturna_ with its commissioner, Princess Luna.

In the dorm tower of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, from one window which rarely opened and which currently had its curtains drawn shut, there came a sudden clatter, a cheerful cry, and a cut-off shout of alarm.

One of the windows then exploded outwards, and a plum-coloured unicorn was hurled out through the cloud of shards, flailing to no effect against the pale green aura of magic binding him.

His horn glimmered several times as he desperately tried to draw magic in to dispel the bindings – but every time he did, part of the magic holding him would condense and smack across his horn like a whip, disrupting whatever energies he could bring to bear. A large and elaborate rainbow-coloured clown mask, complete with red rubber snout, bobbed out after him.

The aura around him winked out once he was well clear of the window and he hung there, dazed and confused, for a brief second. Physics, which had a rocky relationship with Equestria at the best of times, took a few moments to register the proper reaction to an unsupported mass in mid-air.

Remember it did, and there then came a drawn-out wail from the unicorn as he plummeted down the side of the tower to the stone sidewalk far below. Then there came a solid thunk, and multiple startled cries from the gaggles of students who had been in the vicinity, and a decidedly under-the-weather moan from the unicorn-shaped hole in the stone. The mask plummeted down after him, bouncing nose-first off his skull with a morose _parp_.

From the broken window far above, another unicorn looked down, breathing heavily with magical exertion.

He was of slight build, with a skewbald coat of white and dark brown, a black combed-back mane, and pale green eyes that regarded the world from behind steel-rimmed spectacles, the broiling anger in them simmering down to cool unconcern. Three small stars glinted on his dark brown flank. As he looked down at the fallen unicorn and screaming bystanders, he distastefully brushed some shards of broken glass off the window edge as well. They caught the light as they fell, sending tiny prismatic patterns skittering over the tower's curved walls.

"Idiot," spat the unicorn, acid lacing the word.

His name was Skewbald Doul. And it suddenly occurred to him that he might get into trouble for this.

He took a few steps back and summoned up his magic once again, winding out the green light from his horn and exerting his will upon it so that it settled into a flat plane across the broken window. A further pulse of magic from the horn kept it in place, and made it into a reasonable simulacrum of the hitherto-intact plane of glass, complete with light playing off the surface.

Reasonable, that was, so long as nopony noticed the draft, which was decidedly unmissable this far up. But that couldn't be helped. Fine control was his speciality; he wasn't enough of a magical heavyweight to create solid matter, however briefly.

Skewbald kept part of his attention on the illusion, keeping it active while he dealt with whatever was strewn across his room's floor. A quick sweep of his tail sent the remaining pieces of glass behind a curtain, which he pulled out to ensure their cover. He turned to his desk and shelves, from which several books and a sheave of papers had been sent tumbling when he had started in alarm at Caballus's interruption. He plucked them off the ground with the most casual of telekinesis, setting them back into their proper, orderly places while he paced impatiently, trying to think his way out of this.

He had plenty of room in which to pace. The room, large by dorm standards, was bare but for the basic furnishings; a meticulously-made bed, a desk topped with neat stacks of books and notes, a empty wardrobe, and shelves of carefully arranged library-marked books, the covers of which were the only splash of colour in the room beyond brown and grey.

The noise from the window, the astonished cries of students and the pained cries of Caballus both, rose in volume and Skewbald savagely wished they would all shut up. It was hard to think, for goodness sake. Did they have no consideration?

He had possibly overreacted, he was already telling himself; and merely returning the room to its normal state was as pathetic a deception as you could get when the evidence weighed against you was a unicorn embedded in the pavement and a multitude of witnesses. Though it could at least buy him a few extra seconds when they arrived to think of a convincing story.

It had been Caballus's fault anyway for provoking the reaction, as far as Skewbald was concerned. If you were going to burst out of the wardrobe when other unicorns were trying to study, wearing that ridiculous mask and gurgling like an idiot in the name of 'fun', then you deserved whatever happened to you.

The school authorities would likely reject that notion, however. Assaulting another student with magic warranted immediate expulsion, as far as Skewbald knew.

Hurried hoofsteps were already sounding on the stairs, and Skewbald tapped one hoof incessantly on the surface of his desk as he tried to bully a story out of his skull. _His fault … he came in here maddened, he must have had too much salt and he wouldn't calm down, I tried to defend myself … It was a magical accident, we were working on a rote spell mentioned in a lecture and something wouldn't click, there was a magical overload and he went flying … Just a bit of bother between students, sir, he'll heal quickly enough and I'm truly sorry if it caused any concern..._

Two loud knocks sounded on the door, jarring Skewbald out of his train of thought, and were quickly followed up by the rustling of keys and the door flying open. The burly frame of the school's proctor loomed, flanked by a pair of equally burly assistants. Three sets of eyes blazed, and three horns glittered with pent-up magic. Behind them, other students were starting to poke their heads around to see what was going on.

Skewbald turned around, his expression cool and composed, his manner yielding nothing, his eyes as emotionless as they usually were. With a cool breeze and a rising cacophony at his back, he said "Is there a problem, proctor?"


	2. The Long Term View

It was a matter of a half-hour for the headmistress to be appraised and for Skewbald to be brought before her. Mancery, a rose-coloured mare with crossed wands on a chalkboard for a cutie mark, began the meeting hoping that the situation was some grievous misunderstanding that could be resolved with a little peaceful mediation and minimal punishment. She finished it with a little less faith in pony nature than she'd had before.

Skewbald tried to pass off the incident as a harmless misunderstanding, playing to what he knew of Mancery's expectations, and took care to include the expressed hope that Caballus made a total recovery from whatever Skewbald had unthinkingly done.

The words themselves weren't bad. It was just the complete lack of anything resembling emotion in the tone with which they were uttered glibly that let them down.

The headmistress was unmoved.

Sensing a cooling of attitudes, Skewbald decided that the story had to be amended. The misunderstanding between students turned into a misfiring rote spell, the energies of which had violently thrown Skewbald into a wall and Caballus out the window.

This too would have been fine enough, if not for the fact that there wasn't a hair out of place on Skewbald's coat and mane, it was contested by the eyewitnesses who'd seen the unicorn at the window, the neat stacks of books in his room hadn't apparently been touched, and that it directly contradicted sentences spoken a few minutes earlier.

The headmistress was yet unmoved.

Aware that his future at the school was now on the ropes if not out for the count altogether, Skewbald hurriedly tried to shift some measure of blame to Caballus, implying that the other unicorn had threatened him into performing the rote spell they didn't have the magical muscle for. This did less than nothing to smooth over past contradictions, went against everything on Caballus's record, and wasn't helped by the fact that Skewbald only remembered about emotions and injecting them into one's tone in order to convince near the end.

If you listened to some of the leading unicorn astronomers and earth pony physicists, you'd learn that one prevailing theory was that, just as the sun and moon orbited the planet, so too did the planet and stars orbit a fixed point at the centre of the universe. This theorised point was the fulcrum around which time and space turned. It was fixed, still of necessity, utterly unmovable.

The headmistress resembled this. The headmistress _beat_ this.

Mancery called the meeting to a halt, and ordered Skewbald to be put under guard by the school's security while his room was cleared out. Once her office was emptied of others, she pulled out a sheet of paper. With no satisfaction, but with a certain grim determination to see justice done, Mancery began drafting a formal letter of expulsion.

She debated briefly whether to get the Canterlot Guard involved, but decided against it. She'd just take the finished letter to Princess Celestia for her approval – for it was, technically, her school – and see this whole matter dealt with and over.

* * *

In a wide, well-appointed office at the top of the Lance, Princess Celestia was drowning in paper.

This was a normal state of affairs for anypony governing Equestria, despite (and because of) the aid of the Equestrian Parliament. Ambassadorial orders, trade invoices, formal invitations from foreign and domestic dignitaries, reports from all corners and transcripts from each of the city councils bobbed around the princess in a flock of paper; held aloft by magic and attended to in as orderly a fashion as possible by five hovering quills.

Even under that weight, Celestia was still able to devote the largest amount of her attention to keeping the sun moving. Light streamed in through the open windows which filled the walls on all sides, setting surfaces aglimmer and the armour and lance tips of the waiting Dayguard blazing. The two guards stood by the door to the spiral stairway that looped around the tower.

A speaking tube by the door thumped, and one of the Dayguard made to pick it up.

"Let them in, whoever it may be," said Celestia, grateful for the brief distraction. The paper and quills fell into organised piles around her.

The door opened, and Celestia brightened further when she saw Princess Luna, with two Nightguard pegasi in tow. Luna looked somewhat dishevelled and windswept, but in good spirits.

"Did the _Nocturna_'s maiden voyage go well?" asked Celestia.

"Well, for a given value of 'well', sister mine." Hoarseness crackled at the edge of Luna's voice; evidence of recent use of the Royal Canterlot Voice.

Celestia looked askance at her sister as Luna trotted to a stop before Celestia's desk, a teapot complete with cosy and cups being drawn out from below the desk. The Nightguard took up their own positions next to the Dayguard,

"What given value of 'well' applies to the voyage?" Celestia filled the cups, and passed one to Luna while sipping from her own.

"I confess myself to be no expert on these airship contraptions. But is it reasonable to assume that the engine falling out the bottom halfway through a flight indicates a design flaw?"

Tea wasn't sprayed across the room thanks to centuries of learned self-control on Celestia's part. "What? Was anypony hurt?"

"No. I was able to arrest the fall of the craft with magic and guide it to a flat surface. Many of our subjects below looked most appreciative when the deed was done. I received cheers. And a flower from a foal." Luna indicated the battered daisy stuck behind one ear. "The engineers and pilots aboard insisted on apologising a lot. They assured me they'd iron it out in the beta, whatever such referred to."

"I could send over some of the engineers who worked on the _Diurna_. They'd be able to see that sort of problem gone."

Luna made a face. "In all honesty, I'd wish for a chariot over an airship. Chariots hold an unmatched swiftness and … well, stateliness. And 'tis known that their means of propulsion aren't like to suddenly fall out."

"Always an important factor when crafting any such vessel," said Celestia, smiling.

The Dayguard and Nightguard, while their princesses spoke, settled into their routine of each trying to look more alert and fit for duty than the other. Wings flapped, peytrals creaked, and necks and spines stiffened for the sake of their old rivalry. Even though the Nightguard hadn't actually existed for any more than a year, everypony agreed that it would have deserved to be an old rivalry if not for that trifling detail.

The speaking tube thumped again, and hooves scuffed on the floor as one of the Dayguard succeeded in getting to it first. Words distorted by distance and metal crackled out, and the guard coughed to get the attention of the princesses.

"Princess Celestia, Headmistress Mancery requests a moment of your time," he said. "Shall she be given entry?"

Celestia frowned. The headmistress didn't make a habit of pressing for Celestia's attention. "Let her in." She turned to Luna, smiling wearily. "Business always calls. This shouldn't take too long."

The doors opened to admit the unicorn, small compared to the guards and alicorns. She trotted briskly forward, stopping briefly to bob her head in respect, a folded sheet of paper drifting by her side.

"I apologise for disturbing you, princesses," she said, presenting the paper to Celestia. "A small matter's arisen in the school that needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. A student's warranted expulsion, and that needs your approval and signature."

"Expulsion?" Celestia was genuinely surprised. The sort of students who earned a place at the school weren't those who usually earned lines, let alone anything more serious. She took the paper and scanned down it, while Luna watched with interest.

"What condition is Caballus in?" Celestia said halfway down, her voice briefly hard and cold.

"Very stable. There are wards placed around the tower levels in case of such or similar cases, and they slowed his fall. With assisted healing, his leg should be as good as new within a week and without any other damage done. Not that that should excuse Skewbald to any degree."

She finished reading and placed the paper on her desk, one of the quills at the side ready to be picked up.

"Skewbald Doul," said the princess. "The name rings a faint bell. Lower Canterlot? Scholarship student?" She made a point of meeting each student after they'd earned entry, and tried to visit the school regularly when her duties allowed it.

"So I understand," said Mancery. "Do you wish to see his records?"

"Please."

The mare focused briefly, and with a flash of red and the crack of displaced air, summoned a small leatherbound binder to her. It was one of many in the school's offices, kept for the sake of potential posterity and security.

She passed it over, a sinking feeling growing inside her that suggested that this matter wasn't going to be resolved quickly at all.

Celestia took the binder in a telekinetic hold, and absently finished her tea as she opened it and started reading.

The next minute passed in silence as Celestia flicked through page after page. Luna watched her sister with an impassive gaze and Mancery frowned.

Eventually, the binder was closed and placed on the desk, and Celestia stood still, her expression thoughtful and her eyes elsewhere.

"I feel I have to amend this punishment, Mancery," said Celestia. "And I give you fair warning that you're probably not going to like it."

She explained, and she was right; Mancery didn't like it. But the princess's word was final, and Mancery put reluctant trust in what she proposed.

"I'll explain it to him after I'm finished here," said Celestia, casting a glance back at the paper stacks and mentally estimating how much would yet be sent to her before the paperwork portion of her day was out. "Send him up to me in … three hours. Keep him held by security in the meantime."

"Shall his belongings be moved to the airdocks?" asked Mancery.

"Only if he accepts what I'll ask of him. He is perfectly free to accept expulsion, and he'll probably want his things if he does."

Mancery left, the door slamming shut behind her. With a sigh, Celestia rose and paced over to the other side of the room, to the open terrace facing west. Luna followed after her a few moments later, and rested her hooves up on the stone ledge.

From the streets, there came bustle and rattling wheels and distant chatter; and from the skies around, the rush of passing chariots and pegasi. Outside, looking west past the mountain into which Canterlot was set and down into the rolling plains, a silver river fresh from the mountain snaked its way through patchwork farmland in the middle distance. Lower Canterlot grew up around it, muddying the waters with the offshoots of industry.

The lower city provided Canterlot Proper's artisans and mechanics with all the materials of their trades. Factories blossomed; churning out airship parts and masonry and magical synthetics and dyes and spun cloth on assembly lines beneath a forest of steam-venting chimneys and smokestacks. Houses and flats nestled around them, the air covering them in a pall from this distance despite near-continuous work from the local weather teams. Narrow streets and alleys wound around and between the tall buildings, and steamboats and cargo-carrying airships gathered thick in the river and air.

"I would query thine decision," said Luna, as Celestia stood in thoughtful contemplation. "What has the student done to deserve such clemency? That manner of utterly vicious reaction-"

"Every pony deserves a chance to atone for their mistakes," said Celestia. "Whatever can lie within a pony that drives them to such deeds can be amended through their own efforts and a little help and luck. Besides-" Celestia smiled softly - "I do have precedent on my side for this."

"...Not truly. When last thou effected such an action, the pony in question had a pre-existing special bond with others where you sent her, they faced an immediate peril that required them to bond through teamwork, thou weren't doing it partly as a punishment, _and_, and this is not an insubstantial _and_, she hadn't previously thrown another unicorn out of a window."

"It isn't a perfect fit. But then, I'll confess that I can't help but see … long-ago parallels with another."

Luna stood still there, and seemed almost to shiver. Celestia drew closer to her and nuzzled her gently.

"Not you," she murmured, and Luna relaxed slightly. But though she tried to hide it, she couldn't help but betray a different tension.

"You're referring to...?"

"Yes."

From where they stood, the endless Greycairn mountains couldn't be seen. But in that moment, their presence loomed heavily in mind.

"'Tis thine decision," said Luna after the moment had passed. "But not all mercy is recognised and appreciated. Some are beyond it."

"If the student proves so, then it won't be the first mistake I've made about another, and likely not the last. But I can't not offer mercy where it might grow into something better."

Celestia heard Equestria's annual output of paper calling her name and pulled herself away. "Duty calls, my sister. Meet me at the dusk?"

"As always."

* * *

Skewbald had worn a groove in the room's floor by the time the summons finally came.

He had spent the first half-hour trying to assess his options for when he was turfed out, and hadn't been inspired by any of them. The school had provided lodging, food, and entertainment in the form of the library for him for the past eight years while imposing very few annoyances; and he had nothing of value or contacts in the city to call upon.

Finding a job could have been easily done. Nopony else needed to know about the expulsion, and it would just be a matter of projecting the right image and giving the right assurances. Physical labour in the trainyards or factories in Lower Canterlot was all that was likely to be immediately available, however, and would be hard to attain with his small build. And in any case, he wouldn't even consider returning there unless he had no other choice.

Alternatively, he could leave the city, and the prospect filled him with no great dismay. The Baltimare Arcane Institute might be looking for someone with fine magical control, though it occurred to him that they'd have frequent contact with the School for Gifted Unicorns, and be warned off him as a result. Trottingham, perhaps? Or Manehattan, or San Franciscolt, or anywhere suitably large and filled with opportunities for a bright young unicorn. Plans at this stage tended to devolve into disconnected murkiness, but he saw no reason why they couldn't be devised as he went.

Getting to any of these places would have been a problem, but not an insurmountable one, and he was considering it when Mancery returned and crisply informed him that he would go before Celestia in a matter of hours.

That had given him a lot more to think about. He had met the princess briefly after passing the test to get into the school in the first place, and she had seemed to take pity on him back then, pity he'd marked down at the time as something he might one day be able to draw upon. He'd never had the chance or need, however, and he'd seen her only at a distance since then. Did she just want to lecture at him before he went, or was she changing whatever his punishment had been? Were matters being treated more severely by the authorities than Skewbald had thought?

Were the Canterlot Guard going to get involved? Imprisonment or banishment would make things more complicated and horrible than they had to be, and Skewbald once again wished a bitter curse on Caballus for getting him into this mess. If he had been broken at the tower's bottom, it was merely all that was due.

So he had paced, and tried to plan for a number of eventualities his imagination had thrown at him, and had used his magic to order objects in the room as much as he could past the magical inhibitor tied around his horn. It had almost come as a surprise when one of the Dayguard finally opened the door, gruffly ordering him to follow.

As he followed the guard out the school, across the courtyard, into the palace and up the spiral stairs, he wondered what he could try to say to Celestia to sway her towards some sort of clemency. He could try and evoke the old pity, even though it was unlikely she'd remember it, and he himself was reluctant to cast his mind back to then. He had used a number of his planned stories on the headmistress, and they wouldn't be likely to work on the princess.

It was futile, he realised, to plan for a conversation he was unable to predict. He would just have to play it by ear, as usual.

Finally they reached the top. The guard announced them with a speaking tube, and the thick doors swung open to receive them.

He saw the princess waiting inside, watching the growing dusk. The colours of her mane and tail bled into the sky, the edges of each marked by where the stars started to dot the darkness. Her face was turned away; he could read nothing.

Skewbald trotted in cautiously past the guards on either side, and got no response from her. He ventured "Princess Celestia?"

She ruled Equestria. She was the Sun-Princess. It was an awe that got diluted into respect by those ponies that saw her more frequently than most, but still. He'd be stupid to not defer and be cautious.

She turned, and there was nothing about the merciful princess in her countenance. She was the sun high and resplendent, stern and distant and removed, guarding and judging with severity.

"You know why you've been summoned, Skewbald Doul." Her voice was undercut with the subtle rumble of what couldn't be compared to something as petty as thunder.

It occurred to Skewbald on an intellectual level that, in all honesty, lying to or trying to manipulate the princess would be a really bad idea. Bad on levels inestimable by pony science.

"I do, princess."

"You will explain your actions."

There could be a chance here, if he explained it properly...

"Caballus interrupted me in my room, princess," Skewbald started. "He'd been pestering me in the library, hallways, and after lectures for a few weeks, in the name of getting me to 'loosen up'. In his own words."

That wasn't entirely untrue. Caballus was a happy social butterfly who attracted and returned smiles and conversation wherever he went. He'd taken notice of Skewbald and had tried to engage him in cheerful pleasantries. Upon being told where he could go and annoy somepony else, he had seemed to regard Skewbald as something of a challenge.

"He hid in my wardrobe earlier today, and when I was studying, he thought it would amuse himself to jump out at me."

It was a well-meaning and ill-judged attempt to amuse Skewbald as well, but the unicorn neither realised it or would have cared if told. Celestia looked as remote as ever.

"Which was when you assaulted him with magic, not caring how badly he was hurt."

"It … was a hasty reaction on my part, princess. I wasn't thinking for that moment..." A lie, that galled Skewbald slightly in the telling. He prided himself on always thinking clearly in every moment, even if, he was forced to confess, he was usually too busy thinking in each moment and not normally the ones that would follow.

"Had you reacted with more care, more discretion, more _thought_, then you wouldn't be in your position." The Sun-Princess leaned forward. "And I do not like the sort of reaction that comes forth to hurt another of my little ponies."

Skewbald knew he was doomed. The princess was clearly intending to be unmerciful...

"I am, however, prepared to offer you a chance beyond expulsion, which may help all of us in the long run," continued Celestia. That got Skewbald's attention.

"What … what is the ..."

"You will be suspended from the School for Gifted Unicorns. You will not live there, learn there, access the materials there, or be permitted inside. And for as long as your suspension lasts, you will be banished from Canterlot."

That … was much better than expulsion. Skewbald had no wish to leave the school forever, and being obliged to leave temporarily was better than the alternative.

"In addition, you will be taken by sky-chariot to the town of Fort Livery, where you shall be provided with lodgings and employment."

That wasn't so good. Being stuck in some town out in the middle of utterly nowhere with the chance of re-entry to the school was still better than expulsion, but a city would have been much preferable. He still wasn't complaining, depending on how long he would be obliged to stay there.

"How long will my suspension last, princess?"

"It will be conditional. While you are in Fort Livery, you will make the company of other ponies. You will report to me regularly on your progress. And you will be admitted back into the school when you have learned about the magic of friendship."

Skewbald managed "What?"


	3. Crossing Points

And that was more or less how Skewbald Doul found himself en route to a place he cared nothing for, for reasons he felt no shame over, to a purpose that just left him bemused.

Wind whipped his mane into disarray, and set the pages of the book he was doggedly trying to read flapping wildly. Sharp gusts had twice obliged him to save his spectacles from a groundbound doom. The two Nightguard pulling the chariot were happy to ignore their silent passenger, instead swapping jibes and rumours fresh from the barracks.

They cut a south-westerly course, and had been doing so since daybreak for the better part of two hours. Whenever Skewbald intermittently gave up reading out of sheer frustration, he'd look out over the sides of the sky chariot and see fields and hills and the odd crags of stray mountains rushing by beneath the cloud cover. Twice they passed over villages, the ponies on the ground waving up at the chariot bearing royal insignia. The guards waved back; Skewbald didn't.

They pitched. They swayed in the air currents, and Skewbald found himself going through old mental counting exercises and remembering rote tricks in an attempt to stave off the tedium.

"There we go," said one of the guards in a loud and cheerful tone to her colleague, catching Skewbald's attention.

Ahead them, becoming clearer as they started the descent through the clouds, Fort Livery sprawled, baking under the mid-morning sun.

It was built by a river whose name Skewbald hadn't bothered to remember, radiating out from an ancient wooden fort built atop a crag rising out of a meander. Streets of bright, thatched houses ran down the slopes, gradually yielding to farmland as they ran across the flatland. Dusty roads and stone bridges made the town a crossroads, linking Las Pegasus to the east with Trottingham to the west with the Buffalo Territories to the south. What Skewbald took to be the town hall rose above the houses in the centre of town, competing with the fort's towers for height. Banners atop these towers flapped in the hot wind, he noted, banners marked with the blue-and-bronze of the Equestrian Guard.

"Shout if you see a flat bit," said the other Nightguard, craning around to glance at Skewbald. "We'll come in for a landing as close to the hall as we can."

* * *

In an farrier's office in the middle of Fort Livery, Zephyr Gauze was trying and failing to write a letter home.

_Dear Mother, Father, Boreas, Eurus; I received your last letter as of the 21st, and am pleased to report that a rugged life out from Trottingham has not rendered me dead and/or uncivilised. At least, not yet._

The words sounded good when he ran them through his head, and he wrote them down. He then stared at the paper, tried to push past a sudden wall of writer's block, and flicked the paper into a wastepaper basket beside his desk with a sigh. It joined a growing pile that threatened to overflow the basket.

Stretching green wings briefly, Zephyr rummaged for some new angle with which to open a letter, stole a glance at the speaking tube rising out of his desk in case it should thump with an appointment for him, and when it didn't, turned his attention once more to a well-worn copy of _Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet._

There was little else in the office to occupy his attention. His medical equipment - stethoscopes, ever-ready farrier's bag, needle and thread, jars of antiseptics, ointments, sealants, bandages, and orthotic shoes – was as clean and prepared as it could ever be. Nopony had made any demands on his time since he'd arrived, whether patient or fellow farrier.

It was frustrating. The townsponies had acquired an annoying habit of not getting injured or even mildly unwell a lot of the time. The Guard had their own medics and farriers in the fort to deal with their own still rare injuries. And Zephyr was sure that the other farriers in the clinic were deliberately steering the few cases they received away from the young student on a placement. It was, he conceded, probably a well-intentioned attempt by those who remembered themselves during their student days to save as many lives as possible, but still.

Zephyr kept reading, content to let the world turn outside his office. He was sat behind his desk at one end of the room, behind which a window allowed light to stream in. A stocked cabinet ran along one wall, and a farrier's chair and folding screen along the other. An elderly air conditioner gurgled away to itself in a corner, producing intermittent blasts of steam given colour by the deteriorating magical mechanism inside it.

One such blast broke him from his reading, making him remember with some guilt about the letter yet to be written. He tugged open a drawer and withdrew a fresh sheet of paper. Securing a pen in his mouth, he began to write, determined that this time, he would finally see it finished -

_Dear Mater, Pater, Assorted young miscreants; Your letter reached me alive and well..._

And then, with the regularity of a metronome, writer's block. He stared at the words, created anagrams, reshuffled them, converted them into numbers and added them up, and then despairingly added the letter to the basket and re-found his place in the book.

Behind him, unseen, a flying chariot broached the town's skyline.

* * *

Above the Cadet Training Grounds for Fort Livery, the skies were drenching the ground with sunshine.

They were also bucketing down with rain, shrouding the ground with mist, sending gale-force winds chasing through a raging thunderstorm, and sending down snow sufficient to do a windigo proud.

The training grounds were a grid of nine hectare-sized squares; each of which bore a different feature, such as a thick forest, rolling hills, a facsimile of a border fort, or a perfectly level plain. The weather for each square was changed regularly by pegasi officers, according to the needs of whatever exercises were on the schedule. Currently, the central-south square was shrouded with fine drizzle. Sunbeams were caught from neighbouring squares to turn the edges into shifting rainbows, and to set the dripping armour of the drilling cadets inside aglimmer.

It was the sort of sight Chevalier would have normally taken a moment to appreciate, if he weren't distracted by another cadet trying to brain him with a lance.

The waster lance's blurred down and was knocked aside by a last-minute swipe from Chevalier's own weapon; who back-stepped hurriedly as he tried to raise it into a proper ward. This was easier said than done when the thing had to be awkwardly couched under a leg and balanced in one's mouth, but Chevalier persevered and succeeded just in time to dodge and knock aside the next two thrusts. The other cadet, Silver Shield, pulled back and held their lance in the crook of a foreleg, flashing Chevalier a cheerful smile as he did so.

"I'm always open to surrender," said Silver Shield, who was proving himself irritatingly adept with the weapon, "Just if you felt the need to take advantage."

"You should have shaid," replied Chevalier, somewhat indistinctly past the lance between his teeth. "I'd have acshepted it shooner."

Silver Shield laughed briefly, just long enough for Chevalier to take advantage of his distraction and drive forward. Silver Shield's turn to hurriedly block came, and he took several more backsteps as their lances blurred and cracked together in the air, trying to maintain distance between them both.

Chevalier was faster on the move, however, and he quickly closed the distance just as a quick upwards sweep from his own lance sent Silver Shield's own weapon flying away. He bulled forward, pressing the staff side-on into Silver Shield's chest, hooking it past the edge of his peytral and shoving the flailing cadet backwards, sending Silver Shield crashing into the ground with a clatter of armour plates and a startled release of breath.

Chevalier positioned himself above Silver Shield's stunned figure, letting the lance roll free as he pinned the cadet down with the weight of both his hooves. Silver Shield struggled, but Chevalier was a pony to whom 'strapping' could be reasonably attached as a descriptor, and he gave up after a few moments.

Around them, there came the clacks and muffled oaths of other cadet pairs at their own lance drill, above which the voice of Staff Sergeant Ginger rose. The mare trusted more advanced cadets to get on with it and spared her attention for others more needing of it, leaving Chevalier and Silver Shield to their own devices much of the time.

"I'll take that surrender, if you're still offering," said Chevalier, casually shifting his weight as Silver Shield renewed his escape attempt.

"Sun take it, Chev. If you keep pinning me to the ground during training, we're going to start _rumours_."

"Implying that they haven't started already." Chevalier nodded sagely, pretending to consider the words. "Wise advice. I'll be sure to do it more often and more publicly. Thank you for saying so."

"Well, that's – if you'd – moonrocks on a – arrgh." Escape attempt mark two was finally conceded as a failure, and Silver Shield opted for lying prone and adopting an annoyed expression. "Remind me again why I'm your coltfriend?"

"My skill at arms, easy wit, chiselled physique, and discrete and self-effacing nature? Agree to all of these and you go free."

"Fine. Assuming that sarcasm counts."

"It's such nice weather for lying in the grass," said Chevalier. "Obviously, you don't want to miss a single part of it."

Silver Shield snorted and threw his head back, his helmet tilting backwards on its worn straps and giving him a clear and upside-down view of the world behind him.

Then he said, in a lower and careful tone, "Ease up. Your dad's coming over."

Chevalier looked up, towards the central square. A balloon with an under-slung basket was tethered to the middle of the square via a long chain. A ladder descended from the basket, allowing officers to scale the balloon and observe any training in progress; providing a point from which to take notes, plan future sessions based on performance, and only occasionally point and laugh.

From the direction of the balloon, a figure in purple officer's armour was trotting in their direction. Their gait was quick and limping.

Chevalier let Silver Shield go, offering a hoof to help him up. He checked himself over briefly, tucking a few stray red strands of his mane back beneath his helmet, and shook himself, sending some of the water soaking his armour and coat off in a spray. He was aware of Silver Shield doing the same, though perhaps with not as much care as Chevalier himself.

"At ease, cadets," said General Destrier as he neared, hardly seeming to notice the drizzle he had stepped into, and returning their salutes with a brisk one of his own. He turned to the approaching Ginger, and returned her salute in turn. "Sergeant, would it interrupt your drill if I borrowed one of these cadets?"

"Not unduly, sir," said the rust-coloured mare, her gaze sweeping them over briefly. "The spare can help teach other groups."

"Very good. Cadet Chevalier, if you'd accompany me?"

Destrier turned and began trotting back the way he came. Chevalier followed after a backwards glance and a mouthed Meet you after this? at Silver Shield. He fell into step with his father, wondering what he had been called away for. The horseplay just there? A family matter? Was there an emergency?

When he was near his father, their similarities and differences were apparent. Chevalier had inherited Destrier's red mane and wine-coloured eyes; but where Chevalier was of slightly-above average height with a muscled build and a white coat, Destrier was tall, gaunt, and black-coated. Chevalier trotted in bronze-coloured cadet armour; part of Destrier's purple armour was missing to make room for a metal leg brace around his left foreleg.

"We'll be receiving a newcomer from Canterlot soon, via royal chariot," said Destrier as they passed the boundary from drizzle into clear skies. "A student from the School for Gifted Unicorns, from what I've gathered."

Chevalier said "Yes, sir," by way of a place-holder, wondering how this was relevant.

"I imagine they'd be happier with somepony meeting them as they arrived, just to show them around the town, answer questions, give them directions, and help them get settled in." Destrier turned a dark red gaze on Chevalier. "If you're feeling presentable?"

Chevalier felt immediately cheered. That was simple and easy enough, and shouldn't take up much more than the afternoon. There'd be plenty of time left for training and time with Silver Shield.

"I can do that, sir," said Chevalier, his cheer showing. "When will they be arriving?"

Destrier glanced skywards.

"Around now-ish, if I may use formal parlance," he said dryly, extending a hoof. Chevalier looked in its direction, and saw a distant chariot pulled by two pegasi, with a figure too small and distant to be made out in the back. It was coming down over the town, and seemed like it was beginning to circle.

"Meet them when they land," said Destrier. "Wherever they decide to do so. You'll probably catch them if you start galloping now."

"Yes, sir," said Chevalier, peeling away with a salute and quickly moving to a canter in the direction of the town, the sun already starting to bake his armour dry.

* * *

"Try the town hall again!"

"We've tried _thrice_! It's not going to stop being statues and fountains!"

"Then – there!"

"That's a _roof_! You can't land on somepony's roof!"

Fifteen minutes ago, they had started their search for a suitable landing area for the chariot.

They had discovered that whoever had planned the town really had a thing for narrow, sharply-curving streets, and filling wide open spaces with sprawling fountains and statues with upwards-facing jags. The two Nightguard had started arguing about what parts of the town would have spaces in them, and Skewbald had been content to let them get on with it.

That had been fifteen minutes ago, when life was happy and full of joy.

Five minutes after that, the argument had resumed in earnest, when the Nightguard had started to insist to one another in sheer disbelief that there had to be a space somewhere, but had contended over where it could be.

Skewbald had tried, after their raised voices had become a definite distraction, to imply that he wouldn't actually mind if they just dropped him off somewhere outside the town proper. He had been ignored. Some manner of pride was now at stake, and stars save the pony who attempted to interfere.

Five minutes after that, the Nightguard had started pulling the chariot with escalating force, pulling off acrobatic stunts that a Wonderbolt would have respected and that dropped the bottom out of Skewbald's stomach as he held onto the chariot's side for dear life. They had kept on loudly denying reality and each other, and twice now had tried to pull the chariot in different directions.

Ponies below had become convinced that this was some sort of spectator event, and had started cheering every loop-the-loop and swerve. Bored guards on the fort's walls had produced score cards from nowhere and were watching avidly. A small crowd galloped after them, including one figure in gleaming armour who seemed to be trying to wave them down.

Skewbald was too busy holding onto the chariot to pay them much attention; and his gaze flicked often to the taut ropes, that kept the guards attached to the chariot and which glittered with imbued magical energies to try and keep the chariot's top facing in the right direction no matter the movements of the pullers.

"Horse-words to _this_," declared one of the Nightguard suddenly, "Try the town hall again."

"Buck this with a hammer," declared the other Nightguard at the same time, "Maybe the fort has a space."

"Just _slow down_ and wai..." interjected Skewbald, straining to make himself heard above the rush of wind, just before the Nightguard, halfway through pulling the chariot in another midair loop, pulled sharply apart in opposing directions.

The ropes pulled taut. The ropes snapped.

The chariot whirled and entered freefall, spinning all the while, and Skewbald's perception of the world boiled down to _sky buildings sky buildings sky ponies gasping sky ponies fleeing sky empty street sky WHUMPH._

The chariot by some miracle landed base-down with a mighty crash, tiles and thatch scattering around it from where it had clipped the edges of roofs. One of the buildings it had landed next to sported the red-green banded pillar of any farrier's clinic just by the entrance, and bore Fort Livery Equestrian Health Service Centre on a plaque just above its door.

Almost immediately the door clattered open, and a dark green pegasus with a golden-blond mane hurried out, a farrier's bag swaying in his mouth and his wings flapping to aid his speed. A roll of gauze tape winked on either flank. He cantered up to the chariot and its swaying passenger, shooing away a few onlookers who ventured near.

"Are you okay?" Zephyr asked of Skewbald, who continued to sway while sitting upright, his gaze focused on somewhere a thousand yards distant. "Just nod if you can hear me, okay?"

No nod was forthcoming, and Zephyr reached down for his bag. A shadow fell across, and he turned around, ready to shoo away whatever pony had drawn near, and hesitated when he saw the armour and concerned eyes of a cadet.

"Have you had first aid training?" demanded Zephyr.

"I've taken the basic courses," said Chevalier.

Above them, unseen, two Nightguard were looking down at the chariot and ponies, and while counting it as successfully getting their passenger to where they needed to be, were furiously arguing over whose fault it was.

"That's workable," muttered Zephyr, turning back to Skewbald. "If he's concussed, I'll need you to help me carry him into the clinic. I can..."

Skewbald slowly turned to Zephyr, and cut him off with a piercing stare and a raised hoof. Steel-framed glasses on the chariot's floor were plucked up by an aura of green magic, and were carefully reperched. Slowly and carefully, Skewbald stood, raising to all four legs despite Zephyr's warnings and gentle attempts to press him back down.

Slowly and carefully, each step exactly measured, Skewbald got off the chariot and started walking over to the doctor's clinic, making a straight line for the pillar.

Once beside it, he slowly and carefully sat down on his back legs, and slowly and carefully reached out and wrapped his front legs tightly around the pillar. He sat stock-still for a few long moments, keeping a vice-like hug on the pillar all the while.

"You need to-" started Zephyr.

"Give me a minute," said Skewbald curtly, his gaze yet distant. "I'm not feeling stable yet."

"Sleipnir's danglies," said Chevalier in tones of no little awe, starting forward. "That's what I call making an entrance."

"I invite you to try it for yourself," replied the unicorn. "I might still have a bag in the chariot."

"I'll get it for you," said Chevalier, treating the invalid with courtesy, as was only proper.

"I'm Zephyr Gauze, a farrier," said Zephyr in gentle tones, wondering if the unicorn's brains had been rattled on impact. "What's your name?"

"Skewbald Doul." The accent, with its soft and unstressed consonants and slightly trilled r's, Zephyr was able to place from somewhere around Canterlot.

"I need to check you over, Skewbald, in case you were hurt by the fall." Behind him, there came the sound of Chevalier sifting through the chariot, of two Nightguard all but coming to blows, and the murmuring crowd. "Could you let go of the pillar?"

"No."


End file.
